


Complete Combustion

by HankTalking



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Arson, Hallucinations, Love/Hate, Other, nonbinary Pyro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:07:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28142115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HankTalking/pseuds/HankTalking
Summary: You hate the other Pyro so damn much.
Relationships: BLU Pyro/RED Pyro
Kudos: 16





	Complete Combustion

The thing is, they just won’t _burn_.

It’s not the same with the axe, it’s not the same because even though RED gave you a shotgun the moment you joined, the day take it with you instead of the flares is the day you die. The flares are fine, the fire is fine, fine for everyone _everyone_ except for the damn BLU Pyro.

When called, you’ll come to the Pyro’s name. Your teammates will say it when they motion you over, but when there’s a callout, when it’s _Pyro in sewers_ , you know that is not you and you know who it is. When you look in passing mirrors, in the big soft reflection of the refrigerator’s white surface, you see a gasmask and you see yourself, but do you not think _Pyro_.

Pyro has a suit. It’s the suit that’s the problem. It makes them not burn.

Just like you, maybe, but they’re just as fixed on burning you up as you are on them. You hope you frustrate them as much as they frustrate you. You hope you stick in the back of their gums like a hunk of beef, chewing and hacking but no matter why they can’t get you out. You hope they feel even an ounce of what you feel as you refuse to do anything but meet their stream of flame with your own.

It’s not right that their suit is blue. Fire is red, red hot, angry like a big mouth that eats and eats. When you used to set fire to buildings—so, so many buildings before RED came in and said you could get paid for doing it to people instead—everything would always be orange, with that red, red mouth lurking just underneath. You could feed it, you could make it purr.

Fire can be blue too, you know. Like on the stove, the gas coming out hot and fast, a blue thing that doesn’t move right in the way fire should. The flame is blue when it’s hot enough that the hydrocarbons ignite, where the gasses are burning instead of the pieces of soot. If the tiny particulates catch then you have the orange, the yellow, the _red_ , but if not…then it’s consuming only itself. A flame on a stove, straight up, almost solid, not gas. The fire cannot spread like it’s supposed to, cannot be nurtured. _That_ , you think, is what’s wrong with the Pyro.

You think that, right up until they light the barn on fire.

It is glorious, near blinding against a black sky, and you’d find it hard not to be blinded if you look directly at the blaze. RED peers out the window at it, and you wonder how they can stand it without optical masks to filter it out.

“You do that?” Engie asks as of you as the tower climbs higher.

“Not this time.”

One by one your team loses interest until it’s only you still face pressed against aged and melting glass. When you’re sure you’re alone, you venture out.

The inferno grows closer, and larger, and each step you think it can’t get any bigger. You drastically miscalculated how big this thing would be, as apparently it was only the distance making it look like a blip on the horizon. In actuality, a firestorm is a better description, and you’re all the way in BLU territory before you realize how far it’s extended its reach. Tugging at you.

 _Moth to a flame_ , and you’re too frayed to even laugh at your own joke.

Pyro spins as soon as they hear you coming. How they can hear anything over the roar is beyond you, but where the fire has oversaturated the sound waves surrounding you both, it’s done wonders for your sight. That’s how you see them clearly as they wave at you, moving each finger independently like the coy little slut they are. Then they dart into the inferno, quick as you please.

There is no question if you follow. Of course you do.

The building is even larger when you’re inside it and it’s burning and you have no idea where Pyro has gone. It’s uncurled itself into a maze, and just as you think to try charging deeper you see the flash of a blue suit on the upper floor. There’s the sound of giggling.

You waste no time, gloves protecting you from the burning wood as you grab each rung of the nearest ladder. Once, the timber beneath your foot breaks and your leg goes slipping out into gaseous pit that the fire has stripped the bare components of wood down into, but you haul yourself up by your arms alone and slam one palm onto the loft. If your fingernails could dig in they would, tearing at the surface elevating slowly curling straw that leap at every flame. The heat around your goggles lets your know they’re reflecting yellow.

Pyro runs and you chase, and they are down and then up again then behind a dilapidated tractor as you keep catching glimpses of blue through the orange. On the first floor you tackle them, but they slip away again, sliding as they dash around the tractor and laughing all the while.

“Am I it yet?” they call.

You don’t know how you understand them. Maybe it’s the fire, awakened some sort of connection inside you, burning their words bright and loud as they sear on the inside of your skull. Maybe Pyro has figured a way to beam thoughts directly into your mind. Hell if you know. It seems anything can happen in this weird, infinitesimal moment where no matter how long this barn has been burning it still finds more to eat. A liminal space. A desolation in perpetuity.

They leap on you from a swinging hook on the ceiling. The two of you go tumbling. You slam their shoulders into the floor.

“If no one wins, we’ll both burn,” they pant.

“Good,” you hiss.

And the power of this sacred place reverberates again, because in that moment you can _see_ them grinning savagely right back at you. There is no face, the rubber slowly melting off them does not change, but the expression ripping apart their sliced cheeks is as clear as day.

In the end, neither of you win. You roll, sometimes chasing sometimes retreating, slamming each other against crumbling supports until the pocket dimensions you’ve found yourselves in finally decides it’s had enough and gives out. The roof lands on your heads, still scrabbling at each other with claws wrapped behind gloved hands.

As the last, final moments of execution unfold, they bump their partially melted mask against yours. It’s so liquid—as excruciating as your own liquefying against your flesh, you can almost feel the press of lips through the bubbling tar.


End file.
